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ecology archives 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9III-2004: 17 18 19 22 30 IV-2004: 19
update: don’t
worry, it isn’t happening - thousands of idiots signed a petition,
50 million flies can’t be wrong
“It is not the only example. Along the Haute Route, which runs
from Chamonix to Zermatt, we saw whole valleys, scoured and black, littered
with the debris of broken rocks, left in their wake by steadily melting
glaciers.”
—
“As an example of chronic and pig-headed frivolity, the snow machine
has a lot to answer for. It is wasteful, energy-inefficient and environmentally
indefensible. A single ski resort needs as much electricity as a small
village just to keep its snowmaking systems going, and they are insatiable
consumers of water. To cover one hectare (or 2.5 acres) of a snow slope,
which may last less than a day, a snowmaking system needs 880 gallons
of water; to cover all of the slopes in the Alps that have artificial
snowmaking facilities, the annual demand has been estimated at 20 billion
gallons of water, or enough to satisfy the needs of a city of 1.5 million
inhabitants. Because alpine resorts are, despite their icy surroundings,
often short of water, these precious supplies must either be stored
on site or ferried up by helicopter. The Swiss, veteran users of airborne
travel, favour the latter. The French dig reservoirs. The Austrians
do both.”
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Figures above taken from
Climate Change in the European Alps
OECD,
$32.00 [amazon.com] {advert}
amazon.co.uk
ISBN-10: 9264031685
ISBN-13: 978-9264031685
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expending energy to counteract global warming
image
credit |
“[...] snow
production [is] possible whatever the ambient temperature may
be, below-and above-zero. The snow production plant comes in the
form of a container combining all the refrigeration, electrical
and mechanical elements required for its operation.”
“The
technique involves producing very small pieces of dry flake-ice
and spraying it in the form of crystals on the ski slopes to form
a covering of snow.” |
A ‘snow’-generating machine, as used at Pyrenees
ski resorts in France [web page in French], costs about $270,000/£150,000,
and can produce 55 cubic metres of ‘snow’ a day, using 50KWh
of electricity for every cubic metre. In Japan, more powerful machines
are used that generate 180 to 300 cubic metres a day.
“In Japan, the [...]
machines are used to produce snow in warmer temperatures. A number
of ski runs are kept open for five months of the year in regions of
limited natural snowfall.”
—
“Ski resorts can therefore schedule the opening dates for their
pistes, guarantee snow even in periods of mild weather and overcome
wear by rebuilding a layer of quality, skiable snow overnight.”
image
credit |
But this is not all. Snow management
teams work through every night on the pistes with strings of snow
ploughs, pushing back up the slope the ‘snow’ that has
been dragged down by skiers during the day.
Snow ploughs are very expensive, and both they and the ‘snow’
generators require replacing every five or six years.
What appears to escape all concerned is that the energy-burning
actions for ‘managing’ the pistes are now being taken
to counteract the effects of global warming, while, at the same
time, these very actions will cause further global warming. |
This energy consumption, described so far, does not include that of the
several hundreds of thousands of consumers who drive long distances each
year, in order to slide down the snow plough-tidied artifical snow on
planks strapped to their feet, while chancing broken limbs.
related material
replacing
fossil fuels
france
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